While using the automated telephone service at the First Northbrook Bank, Herbert Barnes was the witness of the cruel murder of the telephone personality who was listing his latest transactions:

It was brutal, truly brutal. One minute, the female voice is listing debits and deposits, then suddenly she breaks off in the middle of an automatic withdrawal. But she doesn’t just stop talking. First she whimpers, then starts pleading for mercy. I don’t hear any other voice talking to her: just her tears, and then, with this horrible strangled gurgle, she dies. I’m still shaken up about it, I have these nightmares. It’s just so disturbing.

Barnes immediately reported the incident to the local police department. The officer on duty, Sgt. Robert Meyer, appallingly, did not take him seriously at first. He seemed to be under the impression that Barnes was either attempting to perpetrate or himself the victim of a practical joke. It took several hours of philosophical discussion with various members of the Northbrook Police Department to convince the chief of police, Martin Jager, that a telephone personality was, in fact, capable of being murdered, and that the alleged murder was worth being investigated.

The police have, so far, made no progress towards solving this crime. The First Northbrook Bank has declined to comment, although another personality serving the automated telephone service reports that she “is very disturbed by the situation.”